The present invention relates to a vehicle lighting control system, particularly to a vehicle lighting control system which controls lighting of a display device (e.g., a display of a navigation system) mounted on a vehicle.
Conventionally, in display devices (e.g., displays of navigation systems) provided to instrument panels inside vehicles, the screen luminance is lowered in cooperation with turning on lights (e.g., headlights, small lights etc. of the vehicle) so that it does not get excessively bright for drivers while driving at night.
Note that JP2005-145115A discloses an art of turning off an interior lamp on a meter panel, for example, in cooperation with automatic turning on of headlights, in order to prevent the headlights from turning off unexpectedly.
However, for example in trucks such as delivery trucks and construction vehicles, and passenger vehicles which travel through a certain region of Europe and the United States of America, to improve safety while traveling, the vehicle may travel with the headlights turned on even in daytime when it is bright outside of the vehicle.
In this case, when the amount of light which comes into the vehicle lessens at dusk (when it becomes slightly dark outside of the vehicle) compared to the daytime, viewability of the outside of the vehicle improves by turning the headlights on; however, viewability of a display screen of the display device degrades due to lowered screen luminance of the display device inside the vehicle in cooperation with the turning on of the headlights.